9 comments:

Serhiy
said...

Hi Taras! Hope everything is going fine on your side...

By the way, today at the uni, we had a meeting Mike Gravel, senator from Alaska who participated in the Democratic primary. Actually he claims to be libertarian, even though it was very strange for me to see a "libertarian" whose views seem to be clearly very left (his views are much left than the views of many french socialists, I would dare to say). Anyway, it was quiet interesting, even though our students mainly asked the questions like: "is it true that Sarah Palin goes hunting every week-end?":)

This is not a good sign for Poland, Czech, Romania, etc. who would continue to serve as a "means to an end" in a McCain presidency to stand up to Russia. The sad part is that CEE countries overwhelmingly support McCain not realizing that once again they will be pawns in the U.S.-Russia Great Game.

As I noted in my post on the first debate, I need a U.S. president who is neither too hard nor too soft on Russia.

McCain may be a bit of a hawk, but Obama seems too much of a dove. McCain criticized “President Putin of Germany” for delivering “Cold War-style speeches.” Meanwhile, Obama called Ukraine “the Ukraine” and called Poland and the Czech Republic “fledgling democracies.”

Hope you don't mind my hopping over to this thread. I understand your political point about "the Ukraine". Thanks for explaining, and I did go and read your link - as well as a many other things about your country.

During that debate, when I heard McCain say something like, "watch Ukraine", and then, "You'll be learning about some countries you can't find on a map" (haha!), I knew it was time to start learning more about your area of the world. Undoubtedly this is related to oil and Russia. McCain truly does believe that the US is the greatest country on earth, and he's a military man and he's aligned himself with, and is being advised by, member's of the Bush team. And I think like Leopolis - the "means to an end" use of countries is common for them.

Have you read their foundation document - the neoconservatives whom McCain is aligning with?Here's a snip: "The Cold War world was a bipolarworld; the 21st century world is – for themoment, at least – decidedly unipolar, withAmerica as the world’s “sole superpower.”America’s strategic goal used to becontainment of the Soviet Union; today thetask is to preserve an international securityenvironment conducive to Americaninterests and ideals. The military’s jobduring the Cold War was to deter Sovietexpansionism. Today its task is to secureand expand the “zones of democraticpeace;” to deter the rise of a new greatpowercompetitor; defend key regions ofEurope, East Asia and the Middle East; andto preserve American preeminence throughthe coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies." (pg. 2-3, of 90; http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf)

Honestly, all of this scares me, while at the same time their positions sound ridiculous, like school boys playing king of the hill.

Lauren again, I need to apologize for even asking if you'd read the document I referred to - stupid assumption and question. I need to learn how to talk to non-US people! Thanks for the opportunity and your response.

Like many other people, I believe America will not be able to keep the world unipolar indefinitely.

America remains the biggest economic and military power, but its power relative to high-growth and populous countries like China, India, Brazil, and Russia will be declining. In many respects, we no longer live in a unipolar world.

I look forward to a new world order where smaller countries will protect themselves via collective security. In Ukraine’s case, it’s NATO.

CEE countries “support” McCain because they have diasporas in the U.S. and still remember Budapest '56 and Prague '68. They want a NATO that works.

Taras is correct. CEE countries tend to support conservatives/Republicans “support” McCain because of their active roles in the anti-communist movement. Today, it is mainly because of the perception of insecurity emanating from Russia. There are social reasons, too. Poland, for example, is overwhelmingly Catholic and ethnically homogeneous.

I do not think that this applies to Ukraine, though.

Serhiy -- Mike Gravel is a non-entity in U.S. politics. He gets more coverage on Russia Today than he does in the U.S. media. American left-libertarianism does exist, but the right-libertarians have garnered more attention and support in the mainstream.